Not applicable
Not applicable
The present invention relates generally to a tool for inserting plugs into railroad ties after a spike is removed and more particularly to a tool operable from a standing position and having a collapsible magazine adapted to store and sequentially feed plugs into a barrel out of which the plugs are driven into the hole in the railroad tie after a spike has been removed.
When rails are replaced or re-secured on a railroad track, the old spikes that hold the rail to the ties are removed and new spikes are inserted. It is customary to fill the holes with plugs prior to insertion of the new spikes because otherwise a tight fit may not be achieved and the spike may not securely hold the rail in place. While it is certainly true that a peg can be manually driven into a spike hole with a hammer, this has not proven satisfactory because the plug must be held by hand in the appropriate vertical orientation, which risks damage to the hand of the installer. If the plug is not maintained in the proper vertical orientation, it is frequently damaged by the hammer blows, which is costly in both the time spent and plugs destroyed.
Various types of equipment have been developed for driving plugs and they range in complexity from the simple hand-held tool of U.S. Pat. No. 4,785,692 issued to Holmes on Nov. 22, 1988, to the automatic systems mounted upon self-powered carts disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,144,835 issued to Pehoski et al on Apr. 18, 1964, U.S. Pat. No. 4,522,127 issued to Miller et al on Jun. 11, 1985, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,574 issued to Pierrot on Jun. 10, 1997. However, none of the systems provides an inexpensive tool that is operable from a standing position to successively drive multiple plugs into a railroad tie. The Holmes ""692 tool must be used in a kneeling or crouched position, which may be acceptable for inserting just a few plugs, but is certainly unacceptable for inserting large numbers of plugs over extended periods of time. Moreover, each time that a plug is driven, the operator must manually feed another plug into the sleeve, from which the plug may be accidently ejected and have to be replaced in the sleeve.
The systems carried on self-propelled carts are exceedingly complex and expensive to build and operate. Therefore they cannot be readily available to multiple sites and repair work must wait until such a cart is available. They are not readily available for emergency repairs either.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a tool for rapidly inserting multiple plugs into holes in railroad ties after spikes have been removed from the ties.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a tool that is operable from a standing position.
It is a further object to provide a tool that can be stored and transported in a collapsed form and easily restored to an operative condition when it is needed.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent when the following description and claims are considered along with drawings referred to hereinafter.